


Starving

by abluevixen (knightofbows)



Category: Pokemon GO
Genre: Academy setting, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Go and Candela are siblings, M/M, Terrorist Team Rocket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8483293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofbows/pseuds/abluevixen
Summary: In the aftermath of a Rocket attack, Go finds Spark in the Academy Infirmary.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a cross-post from my [tumblr](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/), and takes place in a grittier, darker version of the pokemon universe.
> 
> [valiant-instinct](valiant-instinct.tumblr.com/) made this [wonderful art](http://valiant-instinct.tumblr.com/post/150346346733/i-drew-my-favorite-scene-from-foxtricks-gospark) for this story. i'm honestly so in love with it, it's [my phone background](http://68.media.tumblr.com/e013c2bc6e172be308ebb27f7ed4b467/tumblr_odgcytbroB1u949jqo1_1280.jpg). honestly, she's been one of my biggest cheerleaders for this universe, including [Into You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8483362) and [Too Good](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8574094), and i have so much adoration for her. like and follow her because she's amazing.

Go is one of the first to catch wind of the attack–one of the rare times he gets to share a meal with his sister is interrupted by a group of lieutenants who bring the news. True to form, Candela offers a quick apology to Go before grabbing her coat and disappearing with her officers. 

Because he’s still, technically, DNIF (Duty Not Including Fighting) from the last emergency response, Go doesn’t push to join the deploying teams. Candela would reject him outright, publicly chaise him in some vicious combination of Valor Leader and Big Sister. And if Spark were to see him so reckless… 

Go just shakes his head and abandons his meal.

He weasels his way into Mission Control–enough people recognize him to let him through–and eavesdrops on situation updates. 

Blanche spots him quickly, and slides through the harried staff members to stand beside him. “You shouldn’t be here,” she says in her quiet way. “You should be resting.”

“I’m fine,” Go insists. Sure, his leg still aches, but he can walk on it just fine. “My  _sister’s_  out there. I want to–”

“You know what it means to be a Team Leader,” Blanche interrupts. “Better than anyone.”

Go averts his gaze, unable to help how his cheeks color. Of course Blanche knows about his feelings for Spark. Sometimes Go thinks Blanche would have been better suited for psychic type than ice and water.

“I’m just observant,” Blanche offers, as if reading his thoughts.

A hesitant laugh escapes Go’s lips. “Yeah, I know.”  After a beat, he asks, “Why aren’t you out there with them?”

“I wish I could be, but someone has to coordinate the efforts.” Her hand on his shoulder steadies him, though Go’s stomach continues to sink. 

The situation they watch only escalates.

Camera shots show Candela’s Pokemon-controlled flames ripping through Rocket troops, their roars tinny and muffled through mic static. Spark’s there as well, commanding precision strikes of electricity with his powerful Pokemon. But just as it seems Teams Valor and Instinct are gaining the upper hand, there’s an explosion that rocks the camera. The feed goes fuzzy then cuts to black. Sound remains a little longer, and Go hears his sister’s voice:

“SPARK! SPARK GET OUT OF–”

Every feed dies.

 

###

 

An Academy Embassy and three Pokemon Centers are smoldering piles of rubble when Team Rocket is finished with them. Valor, Mystic, and Instinct’s efforts saved countless lives, but countless more were lost in the destruction. The rescue mission quickly becomes a recovery mission.

Spark and Candela are alive, though Spark’s far worse for wear than Valor’s Leader. As if anticipating his near-reckless fighting style, Rocket had set a malicious trap to spring once the electricity in the air reached a certain threshold Spark, naturally, would far exceed. Shrapnel tore through the area faster than anyone would have predicted or could have avoided. It set off a chain reaction to collapse the failing infrastructure of already damaged buildings. Academy officials found the remnants of the device in the wreckage. 

People and Pokemon alike bled out in the streets–aid didn’t come fast enough for them. The list of casualties seems endless.

Spark’s saving grace had been his beloved jolteon, Stormy. Her deep energy reserves were enough to encase she, her trainer, and a number of others nearby in a magnetic field, shielding them from the worst of the blast and its deadly metallic projectiles. She couldn’t keep them perfectly safe, but everyone within her magnetic field survived.

Go musters the courage to visit Spark two days after the attack. He tells himself it’s because Spark needs peace to rest. He tells himself it’s because he’s been helping Candela organize reconstruction efforts. It’s much easier than admitting his own cowardice.

He finds Spark in his own suite in the Infirmary, the privacy door open just a crack. He braces himself for the worst: Spark barely clinging to life, hooked up to machines that breathe for him, his fair skin mottled with bruises and lines of dark stitching. With medical staff adequately preoccupied with the endlessly filling beds, Go slips into Spark’s room with relative ease. 

Spark’s facing away from the door, doesn’t even respond when Go shuts it with a gentle click. There’s only a few monitors connected to him, and Go breathes a sigh of relief. Cradled across Spark’s chest and over his shoulder is Stormy, and her large yellow ears fold back upon Go’s arrival. She hisses, the spiking clusters of her fur fluffing defensively, but Spark’s trembling fingers reach up between her ears to pet her head. “Shh,” Spark murmurs to her. “Easy. It’s okay.” To his visitor, he says, “I’d rather be left alone. A nurse took my vitals only a little while ago; you can check the chart.”

“I’m not here for your vitals,” Go says.

Spark’s hand on Stormy’s head hesitates in its petting for just a moment before he looks over his shoulder. “Go?” And then he turns onto his back, gritting his teeth all the while. Stormy, for her part, shifts her weight to let Spark move, but settles quickly across his chest once more, ever protective of her trainer. From this new angle, Go can see that Stormy is injured too, and her wounds haven’t been tended. Spark manages a weak smile, “Hey. What’s up?”

“I wanted to come…see you,” Go manages. He averts his gaze and rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “But if you’re not accepting visitors–”

“No, it’s fine,” Spark interrupts, not unkindly. He gestures to one of the stiff chairs at his bedside. “Take a seat, if you want. Stay a while.” When Stormy hisses again, Spark frowns at her. “Hush, you.”

“She’s hurt,” Go says, accepting the invitation to sit.

“I know,” Spark grouses. “She’s stubborn.” 

Stormy looks at Spark, unimpressed and perhaps mildly offended.

“What?” Spark demands. “You  _are_!”

The jolteon huffs indifferently and folds her head between her paws on Spark’s chest.

“I can take her to the Pokemon Center if you want,” Go offers. “Bring her right back as soon as she’s healed.”

Spark laughs at that, though it’s clearly pained. “If you want to get shocked into oblivion, go ahead and try.” He sighs, then, threading his fingers through Stormy’s wild fur. “She’s refused to leave my side.”

“She’s a loyal pokemon.”

“She’s a loyal  _friend_ ,” Spark corrects. “Though I wish she’d let herself be healed. She took a beating for me…” His breath is shaky when Stormy shoves her head up into his hand. “Will you let Go take you for treatment?” he asks his jolteon. “I’ll be safe while you’re away. I…want you well, too, you know.”

“What made you decide to name her Stormy?” Go asks, changing the subject. To see Spark look so lovingly at his pokemon, to plead with her to let herself be healed–it was too intimate a moment for Go to witness. Hell, Spark didn’t even know how Go felt about him. It wasn’t fair to intrude, despite Spark’s invitation to sit. “Did you give her the name before she evolved?”

With a sudden fond smile, Spark says, “Yeah. As an eevee, she was so full of fight, so fierce, like a thunderstorm. I didn’t know what to do with her at sixteen, but I was instantly smitten. I think she was, too.” He rubs behind one of her long ears, and she grins her jolteon grin. “She took the name well enough.” And though small arcs of energy pulse through her fur, Spark isn’t fazed; he just keeps petting her.

Go’s heart aches.

“She chose her evolution, you know,” Spark offers. “I had all the stones laid out–I loved her too much to force her–and she chose her form. I think if she hadn’t, she’d have eventually evolved into a sylveon, but she chose to become a jolteon instead.”

“For you,” Go remarks, speculative.

“For me,” Spark repeats. He looks at Go, then, “Will you take her for treatment? I can’t…and she won’t go with anyone, but…” He swallows. “You’ve spent some time with her–us–so maybe…you know her, you know?”

“Sure,” Go says, throat tight. “I’ll take her.”

To Stormy, Spark says, “Please let him take you. You’ll be safe with him. He’ll bring you right back to me, and I’ll be safe here while you’re gone. Okay? Please. I need you well.”

Stormy huffs, indignant, but the moment she acquiesces is clear: her eyes soften and her ears have a slight droop. She looks to Go, skeptical for a heartbeat before burying her face against Spark’s hand one last time.

“Here,” Spark says, though whether it’s to his jolteon or Go is uncertain. He slides his hands beneath her small body and eases her up and off of him.

Go quickly leans forward to collect her from Spark, but how weak and wounded she actually is becomes apparent when she lets out a tiny, pained squeak during the transfer.

Spark flinches from the sound, expression crumpling around a croaked, “Sorry.”

Stormy leans heavily against Go when he cradles her to his chest, her small whimpers piercing the heavy silence of the room.

With tender touches, Go attempts to comfort her, stroking the top of her head between her ears as Spark had done. “Come on,” he murmurs to her. “Let’s get you patched up. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Take care of her,” Spark insists,  _begs_. Stormy leaving him for treatment is what’s best for her, both he and Go know it, but how it upsets him to be separated from her…

Go nods curtly before leaving Spark’s suite. Stormy’s paws grip his shoulder, her cheek pressed against his as she watches her trainer while they walk away.

 

###

 

Stormy’s electricity charges the air around them as Go carries her to the Academy’s Pokemon Center. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, makes his hand spark whenever he touches something metal, but it doesn’t faze him. He’s spent so much time around Spark and Stormy, the hum of her power is negligible, despite its consistency. 

Go wonders if it’s the reason no one would take Stormy for treatment–did they think her too troublesome to bother? Did she make herself particularly menacing so she wouldn’t be separated from Spark? Or–and Go shutters at the thought–did people really misunderstand Spark and his pokemon enough to  _neglect_  the wounded pokemon of a wounded team leader?

At the Pokemon Center, the nurse is hesitant to take Stormy. 

“She’s Spark’s,” Go snarls.

“I know who she belongs to,” the nurse says, short. “Just…” She sighs, then rummages around beneath the reception desk to procure a pokeball. “Here. Put her in here, and we’ll get her–”

But Stormy is suddenly squirming in Go’s arms, whimpering and whining against her injuries in a panic. Her electricity flares, arcs of lightning bending around the shaggy fluffs of her fur. Go almost drops her in how it startles him, and the nurse recoils before she can be shocked.

“Woah! Easy! Easy, Stormy!” Go holds her tighter to his chest and stills her, but her crying peaks when he does so. Her shocks are strong enough to hurt, but he endures it to keep her against him, and he quickly turns his back to the nurse, using his larger frame to physically separate them. “Put that damned thing away. It’s freaking her out,” Go demands.

“Sir, it’s standard procedure–”

“I don’t care about standard procedure. Put the pokeball away, for fuck’s sake.”

The nurse does–it clatters back into the bin beneath the reception desk–and Stormy falls a little limp in Go’s arms. Annoyed, the nurse sighs. “We can’t treat the pokemon unless it’s in a pokeball,” she says.

“That’s bullshit,” Go argues. He turns to face her, but Stormy is cowering against him. “Professor Willow’s research proves it’s bullshit. This is Spark’s pokemon, and you’ll damn well treat her injuries however is least stressful for her.”

“Sir–”

“Look,” Go grumbles. “I don’t want to argue with you. I really don’t. I just want Stormy treated. But if I have to report to the Team Leaders how the Academy Pokemon Center puts procedure above the necessary care of heroic pokemon–yeah, heroic, did you know she saved Spark’s life, and the lives of countless others?–I will.” While the nurse looks properly horrified, Go ruthlessly adds, “My sister, Candela, in particular, will be absolutely outraged.”

Heavy seconds sluggishly tick between them as Go stares the stubborn nurse down, but she eventually relents. 

“This way, please,” she says. She turns her back on Go, but he follows her through a series of hallways and into one of the treatment rooms. 

Stormy refuses to abandon Go’s hold, so he keeps her close while the doctors stitch her wounds and cover them in bandages. They apply what potions they can, but outside of a pokeball, only so much healing can be done. Stormy won’t return to Spark at peak health, but with time, she’ll heal naturally, the way humans do. Still, her pain has clearly been lessened, and her spirits are high when Go carries her out of the Pokemon Center.

Though she’s more than capable of walking on her own, she lets Go hold her, lets him do the walking as they return to the Infirmary. And if she tucks her head beneath Go’s jaw to nuzzle him and happily purr, well, Go just scratches between her ears and smiles.

 

###

 

 

Spark’s leaning against the headboard of his Infirmary bed when Go and Stormy return. With the blankets pooled in his lap, the extent of his injuries is, for the first time, apparent to Go. Go’s so shocked by the dark bruises, the gauze bandages, the sheer  _battering_ Spark had taken, he stands dumbly in the doorway and lets Stormy slip from his grasp the moment she wriggles for freedom–he doesn’t even fight to hold her or ease her to the ground.

She’s light on her feet as she lands on the ground, then jumps onto the bed. Her steps are careful, calculated, as she makes her way up the length of the mattress and, ultimately, into Spark’s lap.

And Spark is so happy. His breathing stutters for a heart-wrenching moment before he’s gathering Stormy into his arms and desperately clutching her. “You’re okay,” he mumbles into her fur. “You’re okay.”

Go awkwardly enters the room and hovers near the chair at Spark’s bedside. “They said she’ll need some time to heal, since she was adverse to the pokeball, but she’ll be okay. They expect her to make a full recovery.”

Laughing weakly, Spark looks up at Go, and his eyes are glassy. He flushes and wipes his face. “I should have mentioned that. I’m sorry. She hates pokeballs.”

With helpless nod, Go says, “I realized. So they did what they could.”

“Thank you,” Spark says, and his sincerity is heartbreaking.

Go drops his gaze to his shoes. “Anytime,” he answers, lamely.

“Go?”

“Hm?”

Go grunts in surprise when Spark suddenly fists the front of his shirt and drags him down toward the bed. Despite his injuries, Spark still has reserves of strength Go can only imagine, and he’s helpless with his failing balance not to follow where Spark yanks him.

But when Spark kisses him–something Go, for a fleeting moment, believed would be as sudden and as rough as Spark’s yanking him–it’s soft and sweet. A tender caress of damp lips and a gentle suckling of his bottom lip that has Go collapsing to sit on the edge of the bed.

“ _Thank you_ ,” Spark says again, words warm where they ghost against Go’s tingling lips. He leans in for another kiss, taking his time, but Go enthusiastically meets him half-way. Spark laughs into their kiss as a result.

“Anytime,” Go repeats, smiling against Spark’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr for faster updates: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)  
> and follow me twitter for general shenanigans: [@_foxtricks](http://twitter.com/_foxtricks/)


End file.
